I am off to see the Doc this afternoon. I hope he can give me something to settle down my system.

A big hello to Quinn. Quinn is a very nice young lady. Years ago while in my stay in Beusejour I met Quinn when she was about 10 or 12 years old. It is a very small world as I ran into her a few weeks back and Vi and I saw her again last night. Quinn was married several weeks ago, met the lucky groom John. My best wishes to you both.

I have been thinking about having a blog party. Now I am not even really sure what I mean when I say having a blog party. I had thought of doing something then the blog hit 200,000 hits but missed it. Then thought about doing something at 210,000 hits but again somehow missed that. It seems the actual number of hits is becoming less and less important to me. I am satisfied just knowing people are reading what I have written and that I am seemingly able to help some. It really is such an amazing feeling to know you have helped another.

I have though realized I do want to have a celebration. A celebration of the fact that I am still alive. Now that very statement may sound strange to many. But, really we all should celebrate every day the fact that the Good Lord has given us another day on this earth, with our loved ones. Life has no guarantees and everyday should be seen as a gift, recognized and celebrated as such.

Now I have chosen November 1st to be my celebration day. I want to turn that day into a day of celebration of the fact I am alive. Why November 1st..
Well that wast the date that I heard the one and only time expectation I have had from a doctor as to how long I might have on the earth. His words are still burned into my mind. “There is no way to tell, it could be 3 days, 3 weeks, 3 months, a year, a year and a half or even two years if you are lucky.” Hearing news like that can certainly cheer you right “Down”.

Well guess what. Two years if I am lucky, phooey. November 1st. will mark 6 years and I am still going. Granted maybe I am not going as strongly as I was but I am still going and that is what counts. Never give up on living life to the fullest extent you can. You just never know.

I believe this blog has had a lot to do with my life, my very survival. I have received so much encouragement and support from around the world. Thousands have said prayers for me, for which I am so very grateful. Mere words can not express my gratitude.

On November 1st. please join me in my celebration, I AM ALIVE. maybe we can take that celebration one step further so that every single person that may read this will celebrate the fact they are alive. The I am alive celebration will be for me but for each and everyone. Everyone will take the I AM ALIVE wording to mean themselves. We will all celebrate the fact we are alive.

Now for me this is a big anniversary to be celebrating. Now to help me celebrate I have done in the past I am asking for gifts from all that may read this. That’s right, I am flat out asking for a gift from everyone. I mean doesn’t an anniversary this big for me deserve a gift of some sort.

This is the gift I am asking for. Perform a simple random act of kindness. What the actual act is, doesn’t matter. For whom you perform the act doesn’t matter. It doesn’t have to cost anything, the size of the act again doesn’t matter. All that matters is that you did it. You made the world a little bit better with a simple act of kindness, for which I thank you.

So where does the gift for me come into the mix. I ask that you leave me a message here on the blog, telling me what you did. Help me to know I am making a difference.

Each such message will be seen by me as the most wonderful gift I could have possibly received. It will not be seen as boasting or bragging, nothing like that. Reading your messages may encourage others to do the same. We can change the world, one small act at a time.

Usually, all we read about in the news is the bad stuff. Good hard working people make up the majority of this world and kindness does prevail everywhere. Let’s tell the world about the other side of things, the good and kind side.

I am giving in and making an appointment to see the doctor again. I am fortunate in that when I call they usually fit me in to see him the same day or the next.

About a month ago I got a mild case of the flu or something. It only lasted a day or two. You know the kind I mean, not feeling at all well, the bone racking chills, diahrea the whole story.

Mostly it cleared up within a couple of days. I say mostly because since then it would be over stating it to say I am feeling sick, instead just not well. Now the diahrea is a different story. It has hung around non stop for the entire time, if anything has gotten worse. Now to me anyway 4:15am is early or at least too ealy to be getting up. That is what time I was up this morning and this marks day number 7 that I have been up between 4:00 and 5:00am with the frantic need to get to the bathroom, IMMEDIATELY. Over the next 3 or 4 hours this is followed by 4 or 5 more urgent dashes.

Geesh, just sitting here thinking, I never imagined I would be one day telling the world about my pooping habits.

Hey there is one good thing. If anyone were to say to me: “you are full of sh*t (poop)”. I can look them right in the eye and say: “no I am not and I do know that for a fact, so there.”

That’s right I said it. I AM THE BOSS IN MY HOME, well OK that would actually be when Vi is not home. As the boss of my home, I MAKE ALL THE DECISIONS AROUND HERE, well OK, that is most often after I have been told what I have decided. I have heard a song that goes on about that sort of thing.

Here is an example of how the boss of a home operates. Recently, “someone” suggested to me that our kitchen needed to be updated, cabinets, flooring the whole thing. Acting on that suggestion, realizing how things were going to go from here. In my capacity as “boss” I realized an executive decision was needed. So, “I” decided our kitchen needs remodeling. In a similar fashion, “I” picked out the cabinets, counter top, flooring etc., well OK, it was after I was told which ones “we” liked. OK, there we have my attempt at humor.

Actually, Vi has wanted to redo the kitchen for a while now. She has been watching and has found some great sales, so we are going ahead with it. She has shown me at least 3 or 4 samples of just about everything you can imagine, asking which one I like the best. I do seem to have the uncanning knack of always picking the one that is 3rd. or 4th on her list. I defer to her choise for a couple of reasons. Firstly, she has good taste and I know what ever she picks out will look good when it is all done. Secondly, it just isn’t that important to me if the counter top has gray tones to it or blue or green or what ever. Actually, I really don’t care. I guess, maybe, it is the banker in me plus the fact that money is not that plentiful that dollar signs are the only thing that prompt my involvement.

I have a very scientifically based fact to state. A “Bill” statistic scientifically researched from a sampling of 2 males. Myself and remembering a conversation I had with my brother a while back. Now based solely on the results of this sample, I can say 100% of males do not really care that terribly much about what color the kitchen is. I do realize there may be exceptions to this “Bill” stat.

In fact I may have seen one. I went with Vi to the counter top place. There I did see a young couple in what I would call a quite animated discussion over the selection of a counter top. I have to just ask myself, why?

Using this as but one example, think about it. Think of the big picture of your life. Over all, how important really is it what color shades were in a counter top? Now that is unless we make it a big deal in our minds. I think this applies to almost everything in our daily lifes.

Over the past 3 or 4 weeks I have not been feeling so good. Each day varies, some better, some worse. I realize I have allowed myself to fall into an all to familiar rut.

I really do believe there are always 2ways to look at or deal with everything. How many times have I said, always live life to the max as best we can? I have said it many times but realize I have not been doing it.

During this time there have been days when I am not feeling at all good, but there have been other days where I am just I suppose feeling “not well”. These are the particular days I am thinking of. In these days to say I am feeling sick would be an over statement, more just not feeling well. I realize I have gotten to the point where, when even when I am feeling off, I am still just laying around. I suppose it is waiting for the day when I do feel good. This is craziness, my reality is I don’t know how many days I do have left, none of us do. Every moment wasted is a moment gone forever, a moment we can never get back or relive.

I am giving myself a kick in the butt for wasting so much time. OK, I don’t have control over how I feel physically but I do have control over how I am going to deal with it on a daily basis.

Everyday is a new day, a new beginning. At least to some extent I have the control over how I am going to spend that day. I can live it or I can mope aroundwasting a day because I am feeling a little off or worse yet, feeling sorry for myself.

There is a message today from our dear blogging friend Irene. She is keeping her chin up and struggling on. Please may we all give her our support through prayer.

I also ask for prayers for a new comer to the blog, David. David is currently in tremendous anguish and I ask for prayers please.

In his comment David asks for my opinion. I gave it to him in my response. Now, I do know there are some that do not always read the comments, which I so encourage everyone to do. As I think of it I believe David’s delema may apply to others. In my response to David I rambled on so much I tired myself out. I wanted to put up a post today so I am going to do the two stones thing. I am copying his comment and my response. Others thoughts, please.

I am male 65 yrs old with my mental and physical health slowly failing. I have always been a believer in God and Jesus and salvation through accepting Jesus as the Son of God. I always felt saved until recently. I am going through a horrible time as I no longer feel that God is with me or that I am one of His. I live in constant torment of being damned to hell. I have two children and I fear I will undermine their faith (and others in my family) due to my fear and confusion. If possible, please let me know what you think of this situation. God bless you and I pray that the the Holy Spirit will keep you close to Jesus through this life and all eternity Thank you

Hello David and welcome to the blog. I am sorry to hear of your failing health and of the torment you are currently going through. I am not a doctor, therapist or man of the clergy, I am just a regular guy sharing his thoughts based on my personal experiences. I did in fact a while back go through a similar time where doubts filled my mind. I give thanks to God that I was able to clear my head of such thoughts.

May I ask what it was that happened that caused you to have such a drastic change of feelings? Am I correct in reading from you message that you do feel the God maybe loves you less today than say yesterday or last year or at some time in the past? If that is indeed the case, it is OK to feel that way at times. We are human and not perfect beings. I do not believe God expects constant perfection out of any of us. I believe God with His infinite wisdom and love for us all, sees and accepts we are all just humans. We all have the same weaknesses and frailties that come with being mere humans. While on this earth we never can and never will be perfect.
My belief is that God does not expect us to be perfect, but does expect us to keep trying to do our best, while knowing that even doing our very best will always fall short of perfection. All we can do is try our best, if we fall down we pick ourselves up and start over again.
I believe that while we are on this earth, God wants us to grow to become the very best people we can be and will always be with us to help us do so. By grow I mean internally, to have more loving hearts, more patience with others and ourselves, learn to have more sympathy to others, empathy, acceptance and the list just goes on and on. I believe that as each of these grow within our hearts we do become better people as the Father wishes.
I image everyone’s idea of an ideal life would be one that we went through each and every day with no problems or issues to deal with. That does sound good, having our lives endlessly roll on day after day with never an issue to deal with. If I think about it though I realize that would be in a rut, a seemingly good rut to live in but none the less a rut. If our lives never changed, neither would we.
I read something that went sort of like this:”Knowledge without experience is merely information”. Somewhere out there is someone that would qualify as the world’s greatest expert on the Bible, certainly not me. You can carry all that knowledge in your head but until you are able to put that knowledge to use it remains but information. When actually put to use this information moves from our heads to our hearts and we can grow as God wants us to.
Do I believe God will place “problems” or “issues” in our path through life. I believe the answer to that is YES, but this “issue” is not put there to hinder us. Instead to give us an opportunity to grow, take the knowledge we have in our heads and put it to use, moving it to our hearts. There is another saying something like: “God will never lead you to anything that He will not be there to guide us/help us through”.
I know from my own experience, there have been times when I felt abandoned. My life seemed to be crumbling around me. It was only after everything I was doing that I was guided through it that I was able to look back and realize the growth I experienced.
Sorry David, I got off on my own ramble. I am not sure if any of this helps or even applies but I do hope to hear back from you. Know you are in my prayers and now in the prayers of many others.

WHEN we reach November 1st, it will be a milestone day for me. I jump back in time. Only once has a doctor ever given me an guesstimate about how long I may have on this earth. His words are burned into my mind. “How long do you have? Well there is really no way to know, it could be 3 days, 3 weeks, 3 months, a year, maybe a year and a half, maybe even 2 years if you are lucky.

Now I am not sure of the exact date that was, other than it was the first week of November. So I picked November 1st. as the day to celebrate. Hey, I am going to be celebrating all week long. Why am I celebrating? He said “two years if I was lucky”. I am almost at the 6 year mark and still going, maybe not quite as strongly as I was but I am still going. For me that is a reason to celebrate.

I am trying to think of a way for all of my blogging friends to celebrate with me. Any ideas? I have a couple myself but am really looking for ideas.

Who am I?

I am a 61 year old male. At the age of 52 I was told by my doctor I am dying. For the past 4 years, I have done my best to deal with both congestive heart failure and a brain tumor, while knowing my days are indeed numbered. It is my hope that by sharing my experiences, I can encourage others faced with the same situation. I hope to also help the families of those individuals to have an understanding of the process and deal with the fear or dread of being around the dying.
I am not a doctor, not a man of the clergy, I am not a therapist. I am just me, Bill Howdle, I am merely sharing my thoughts and ideas. I write of death and dying, understand this is my personal prospective, based on what I am encountering.